Release
by Gracie
Summary: Now that they're home, will the captain finally allow herself to express her feelings? Missing final scene from "Endgame."


Release

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AUTHOR: Gracie Kay

TITLE: Release

DISCLAIMER: If only they were mine . . . 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I doubt that anyone was truly satisfied by the end of "Endgame." This is just the missing final scene (I write an awful lot of these, don't I?), something to acknowledge Janeway's feelings about getting home (since Paramount virtually ignored everybody's feelings and concentrated on blowing up spheres and killing the Borg Queen instead). I decided it was about time that the Captain became Kathryn again. 

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The party was a huge success. Of course. How could it be anything else? There were tears of joy, lots of laughter, and even more reminiscing in the mess hall that night as the crew completed the final leg of its journey, the distance to Earth once they had entered the Alpha Quadrant. 

She had attended. Of course. How could she do anything else? She had led the toast with words that elicited many "here-here"'s: "To the journey of the past, the joys of the present, and the promise of the future. And to every member of _Voyager_'s family, present or not. May the stars smile on us always." 

She should have enjoyed the company of her rejoicing crew and did enjoy it, but inexplicably found herself slipping away to the turbolift. "Deck One," she commanded quietly. "Bridge."

As she stepped onto the bridge, three heads looked up from their posts. The young ensign in the captain's chair jumped to his feet, announcing automatically, "Captain on the bridge."

She smiled in response. "At ease, Ensign." Her eyes quickly traveled from one face to another, and she considered them each before continuing. "I'm sure you three are wishing you were at the party."

The ensign shrugged. "Someone has to man the bridge, ma'am. We don't mind."

She narrowed her eyes in a look of mock disapproval. "Don't lie to the captain, Mr. Taylor." When he blushed, she grinned at him. "Dismissed."

His blonde eyebrows shot up, a faint arch of expression on his tanned face. "Captain?"

"All of you. You're dismissed, with orders to report to the mess hall immediately."

Privately, she enjoyed the looks of grateful delight that transformed their faces into three big smiles. "Yes, ma'am," they all chorused at once, then laughed, and she chuckled along. They went to the turbolift, and Taylor turned back to her just as the door began to close. "Thanks, Captain."

"Enjoy yourself, Randy." 

He was nodding as the turbolift whisked his face from sight.

Well. Now she was alone, had achieved the solitude she had so impulsively sought, but wasn't sure what to do with that aloneness. She stepped down to the command deck and paced absently, chin in hand. Then, almost as absently, she walked over to the captain's chair and sat down. 

Her chair. 

She was the captain.

They were home. 

She had kept her promise to Tuvok, after all.

Funny how that memory leaped to the forefront of her mind just at that moment. She remembered _Voyager_'s first night in the Delta Quadrant, staring up at him from her place at the ready room's desk. Her lips curved slightly as she recalled his gentle lecture: "The crew will not benefit from the leadership of an exhausted captain." 

He had always been her cornerstone of logic, irrefutable and uncompromising. A rock is unaffected by impetuous human promises, yet she had made him one that night.

"I'll get you back to them, Tuvok. That's a promise." 

Back to his family, back to the people who loved him and whom he loved, genuinely, if less passionately than humans love. She had believed her promise then, and she believed it for years afterward. It wasn't until her first encounter with the Borg that her promise had begun to sound hollow, rash, and hopelessly . . . human. During their journey, there were days that promise felt close enough to touch and days it felt utterly unattainable. She recognized that part of a captain's responsibility was to maintain the façade that every day was a touch-the-promise day. Sometimes, though, that task was nearly impossible. If she'd ever been honest with herself, she'd have admitted that they would never get home. 

But here they were. The days of projecting a brave persona for the crew's sake, of deluding everyone (including herself, at times) into believing in a dream that could never come to pass—those days were over. The dream was now reality. They were here. 

"Home."

She heard her own voice whisper the word aloud. 

__

Kathryn, it's over. You did it. You kept your promise, and they're all home. 

Sitting in her captain's chair, bound for home, Kathryn felt something shatter deep inside her. She realized that she had not allowed herself to cry in seven years. Not really. 

That was all it took. There was no conscious freeing of emotions, no deliberate relaxing of the diligent, tireless hold she kept on her feelings. She didn't even know what was happening as she leaned forward, suddenly too weary to do anything else, and rested her head on arms that folded across her knees. The tears came silently but powerfully, shaking her entire body with quiet, convulsive sobs. She thought of nothing, saw nothing, and heard nothing, completely enveloped by the sorrow of the captain's journey, now able to express it. Time froze as Kathryn finally melted. 

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End file.
